Illicit acollection, p.60
Illicit: A Contemporary Romance Collection, page 60
That’s what ended up getting her into so much trouble all those years ago.
A bell rang at the big house. Alec raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Last dinner bell," Isobel said. She hesitated, still not sure she wanted to spend more time with him, no matter how good he was with a skittish horse. "I'll walk you over."
Alec
* * *
Alec’s heart hammered against his ribs, but he’d managed to keep a tight leash on his fraying emotions during the scare in the barn. Even afterward and, now, on the way to the mess hall. It didn’t matter that terror spilled inside in a hot, thick rush. The horse and Isobel needed him to be calm. So, he was.
When they reached the line of cabins, he broke toward his. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he told Isobel. “I want to wash up.”
She nodded. Her face was still drawn and her mouth pinched. He wanted to reach out and wipe away her tension. Instead, remembering what he’d decided earlier, he clenched his fist in his pocket.
“See you in a few,” he said.
Back in his cabin, he turned the sink on full blast and let the icy water run over his hands and wrists. He splashed his face and closed his eyes until his pulse returned to normal.
When he was calm enough, he joined the last diners in the large mess hall.
A handful of long tables filled the mess hall, blocked by benches. Everyone was lined up getting their food, so he fell into line. The cafeteria-style dining was familiar, as was being surrounded by so many people with buzzed haircuts.
It made it easier for Alec to pick a table and settle in. He made sure he had a decent view of Isobel, as well.
The men there dug into their food with a seriousness of soldiers who’d seen combat. Food—fuel for the body—proved key to performance. To staying alive. During his years in the army, Alec learned to eat even when he didn’t feel particularly peckish, never wasting the calories that might give him the edge over the enemy.
As he chewed his way through a delicious chicken and orzo dish laced with feta and olives, Alec picked up last names, but it would be several days before he remembered more. The conversation was easy. Small talk. Nothing too personal.
Steve came in with Jamie and Boone—Alec remembered those two men because he planned to befriend them and find out what happened with Martin. After a few minutes, Steve strode to the front of the room and called for attention.
“For those of you who haven’t noticed, we have a new rancher with us. Everyone, this Alec. If you haven’t introduced yourself, make time to do it.”
Groans filled the room.
“Shut it.” Steve was gruff, but not unfriendly. “I know, you’re not twelve, but we are a friendly group.” Steve clenched his hands into fists, his knuckles white. “And for those of you who aren’t aware, we had an incident down in the stables tonight. A rattler was intentionally placed in a stall with one of our more skittish animals.” He stopped and met many of the men’s gazes. “I don’t need to tell you that an upset horse can do a lot of damage. Especially to our Isobel.”
He dipped his head toward her. Many grumbled and shifted in their seats. Alec immediately felt a flash of pride followed immediately by jealousy. The men obviously adored Isobel.
“I’ve dealt with the situation. Which is a good segue into our rules and punishment system. These were put in place to keep us all safe.”
Alec listened with half an ear. Most of his attention was on Isobel, though. She looked relaxed in here. A faint smile tugged up her lips as she spoke with an older, rounder version of herself. Her mother. They hugged before breaking apart. Mrs. Petras sat a heaping plate in front of Isobel who shook her head. She sat down to her meal, a younger girl with the same color hair and same curve of cheek-to-chin sitting across from her, swinging her long, thin legs.
The way Isobel rested her arms on the table pressed her breasts together…. Damn. She was stunning.
And what she’d done in the barn, reacting to that snake without hesitation. That doubled her levels of sexiness.
“You catch that, Alec?” Steve’s question jarred him from the thought.
He looked up to see the entire room watching him. Instinct kicked in. “Sir?”
“When I assign a task, I expect it to be completed with competence and with regard to safety.”
A few of the men around him shifted, all frowning at Alec. His heart beat hard against his ribs but he managed to nod.
“Remember, we do believe in second chances, but you’re either part of the team or you’re not. That goes for all our rules.”
Steve was chastising Alec for looking at Isobel. Or maybe he was driving the point home to Martin. Either way, Alec heard the explicit and implicit threat in Steve’s warning.
Alec risked another glance at Isobel. Her cheeks were darkened, but her smile hadn’t faded. She shook her head and turned back to her mother.
Half an hour later, dinner wrapped up. He said goodnight to the people who would be his troop for the next several months.
Mrs. Petras met him at the door. Her eyes were a soft brown, her face a little more lined than the last time he’d seen her.
“Hello, Alec. I’m glad to see you.”
She beamed at him with a sweet smile. Before he realized it, he’d bent down and hugged her. She embraced him back, rocking him slightly to and fro as she’d done when he was a boy who’d needed someone to care. He inhaled her lilac scent and felt…whole. The feeling was almost foreign these days.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Mrs. Petras.”
“We’ll take care of you here,” she said. “And know that my door is always open.”
Alec swallowed down the lump of emotion at those words—words he hadn’t heard in years. He nodded, unable to speak. She patted his cheek. In a slight daze, he wandered back to his cabin. For the first time in months, Alec slept hard through the night.
Alec
* * *
The next few days passed quickly with a complete lack of excitement. Alec grew more grounded thanks to the steadiness of the routine. He tried to keep his emotional distance from Isobel during his counseling sessions.
“Why can’t we ride over the grounds?” And not talk about how I let my buddies down.
She perched on the edge of her chair, her prim dress pants showing off a hint of ankle above her strappy, low heels. His sister liked those type of shoes, too.
“Not until I’m sure you can handle the responsibility of another living creature.”
Alec leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Isobel kept her face neutral but the small spark in her eye told him he’d managed to tick her off. Good. He was ticked to be sitting here.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to do that? That was my whole job in the military.”
She met his gaze, held it for a long, tense minute. “You’re not ready, Alec.”
For the fourth time in eight days, he sat across from Isobel in her office instead of playing baseball or helping in the stables. She let him direct the pace and tone of their interactions. While Alec appreciated the nod to his autonomy, he kept waiting for her to spring some trap—a gotcha moment that would explain her anger that first night.
Instead, during these first few sessions, Isobel discussed shared childhood memories. It was only after a couple hours of reminiscing, in their current session, that Isobel brought up his parents.
“How are your folks? We haven’t seen them since we moved.” Isobel shifted, as if something in that statement made her uncomfortable.
Alec would rather talk about his parents than the day he managed to let down his team, so he said, “They’re fine. At least they were. Last time I talked to my mom.” That had been en route to the ranch. He should call her, let her know he’d settled in.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Isobel said, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. She canted her head. “And your father?”
“The same as always. Bossing people around, I’m sure. My dad’s such a control freak,” Alec muttered, kicking out his legs and crossing his ankles. He glanced up in time to catch the angry tilt to Isobel’s mouth.
“What’s that look?” Alec asked.
Isobel shrugged. “I’m not sure. Want to tell me why you consider your father a control freak?”
Alec tilted his head. “You know why. He ran you off that night after I graduated.”
Her mouth twitched again. “Your father cares for you, I’m sure, and he had his reasons for his actions.”
Her tone lacked conviction, though, which proved Isobel was smart. Luke Monson wasn’t just a control freak—he enforced his rules with more ruthlessness than any drill instructor Alec had ever met. That’s why Alec’s younger brothers completed their missions in Honduras, and Alec’s sister was engaged to marry the man Luke hand-picked for her, probably while she was still in high school.
“You don’t believe that,” Alec scoffed. “He said some nasty things to you when he caught us in the park.”
Isobel licked her lips—Alec hoped because she was remembering that hot and heavy make-out session in the trees. Isobel’s sweet pink lips had always fascinated him. Were they as supple as they looked? They had been, years before. He wanted to know if she still tasted as good as he remembered.
“He’s not worth either of our time,” he said, trying to get his mind off his growing desire to lean forward and trace Isobel’s lips with his tongue. He shifted in his chair. “I made it over a decade without seeing him in person, and I would have liked to have gone longer, but it’s hard to disappear when you’re all banged up in a hospital bed.”
“Will you tell me about that meeting?”
Alec rubbed his sweaty palms down his jean-clad thighs. She’d taken a perfectly good fantasy and brought it crashing down with reminders of his dad’s ultimatums, which led to his mother in tears.
“Much rather discuss our history than mine with my father,” he said.
“I don’t…” Isobel closed her eyes. She seemed to count to ten in her head, then fixed him with a no-nonsense stare. “I want to help you, Alec. But to do so, I need you focused. Willing.”
Oh, he was willing. Willing to love every inch of her skin.
Slowly, he dragged his gaze from her perky breasts thrusting against the silky white of her blouse to her face. The spark in the pale gray irises was not from the same heat that built in his gut.
“We’re done here.” Isobel stood.
“What? Why?”
Alec rose, too. He knew why, but he didn’t want to be finished. He wanted to spend more time with Isobel, fantasize about her lips and her ass cupped in his palms.
“I’m your therapist, Alec. Not your…” She waved a hand. “Until you want to discuss your father and what that has to do with the crash—”
“Don’t,” Alec snapped. “Don’t be like the others.”
Her brow furrowed. “Others?”
“The shrinks in Germany.”
Silence built between them and turned quickly into a battleground. Alec stared at Isobel’s face, trying desperately to find something, anything, to keep him from falling into those memories. Why wouldn’t she understand talking wouldn’t bring his buddies back?
“My dad’s a dick who wanted me to go into law, politics or…who knows?”
“So instead of confronting him, you joined the army?”
“No.” Even to his ear, his intonation wasn’t convincing. He had to force his hands to unclench. Getting upset made the shrinks in Germany press harder. “I left to make my own way at university.”
He didn’t want to go back to his past. Not even in his memories.
“Then, what did you do?”
No way he was telling Isobel he joined the army to get back at his father for forcing her parents out of their lease. For the nasty things Luke said about Isobel’s character. That was only part of the reason anyway. Isobel nailed the rest already, and Alec didn’t like admitting he’d powered his way through college and commissioned because he was too scared of his father’s ruthlessness.
“Alec?”
He tried to put up a wall, like he would with his father.
“Nothing.”
“I think we both know something’s going on in your head right now.”
“You’re right,” Alec said, tightly. “We’re done.”
He strode to the door and opened it, fumbling the handle thanks to his shaking hands.
“Alec,” Isobel whispered, but he never stopped walking. No way he was talking about that day in Afghanistan. Not even with Izzy. Especially not with Izzy, whose opinion mattered.
Living it once had damn near killed him.
4
Isobel
Alec walked out. The cold look in his eyes told her he’d do it again. Isobel eventually shut her mouth. She went to her desk and made some notes in his chart. She was so engrossed that she startled at a knock on her door.
“You done?” Steve asked.
“Yes,” Isobel said.
“How’d the session go?” Steve asked.
Isobel hesitated, hating the hurt that seeped over Alec’s features, wishing she could do more for him.
“Not great.” She didn’t elaborate. While Steve was also a licensed counselor, Isobel didn’t think it appropriate to discuss her clients’ confidences.
“He going to make the improvements he needs?”
Again, Isobel hesitated. “He’s hurting.”
Steve settled into the chair across from her. “And you want to take that on for him. Don’t do it, Iz.”
“I’m aware of the professional line in our relationship,” Isobel said drily.
Steve leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “But can you stand to see him hurt and not want to comfort him?”
She frowned, not understanding Steve’s point. “That’s my job. To offer comfort.”
Steve stared back at her. “He came to talk to me. After the incident with Martin. Said you’d looked scared.”
Isobel’s heart pounded and her palms slicked with nervous sweat, but she managed to quirk an eyebrow, hoping she looked mildly intrigued. Or bored. Yeah, bored would be better.
“I’m not sure Alec has a great understanding of my day-to-day life,” Isobel said.
Steve leaned back in his chair. “He said not to tell you. That I’d do better to let him keep an eye out. But that’s not how we run things here—as you know. So, I’m going to ask you, flat out: Do you have a problem with Martin?”
Isobel took her time before she nodded.
Steve cursed softly. “I didn’t see that.”
Isobel sucked in a deep breath, wishing it would calm her racing pulse. “I can handle it.”
Steve grimaced. “It’s not about what you can handle. It’s about me, keeping you safe. I should have realized Martin made you uncomfortable, but I didn’t. And the fact Alec did makes me even more unhappy with myself.”
“I didn’t want you to know Martin worries me,” Isobel murmured.
“Why? That’s exactly the kind of detail I need to know.” Steve turned away and cleared his throat. His cheeks tinged with pink. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Iz. Not by Martin and not by Alec, who we both know will continue to struggle to reintegrate with society if he can’t or won’t work through his issues.”
Did he think her incapable of doing her job? Steve’s face seemed earnest, but Isobel worried she’d upset him by not moving quickly enough with Alec.
“Alec will be fine, eventually.” When he started to talk about his past, he’d finally heal.
She looked down at her desk, willing her cheeks not to blush. The irony was that she wasn’t healed because she never spoke with her parents about destroying their livelihood. She breathed in surreptitiously.
“This is what you pay me to do, to help the veterans here work through their trauma.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “All right.” He rose. “I need to think on what to do about Martin.” He sighed. “See you at the stable for the afternoon ride. I’ll be keeping an eye on Alec then so you can talk with Boone about his goals.”
“Sounds good.” It didn’t, but Isobel would use that time—and maybe tomorrow or over the weekend—to work up the courage to broach the subject with her parents.
Isobel leaned back in her chair as Steve strolled out. Isobel ran her hands down the side of her slacks. She insisted on professional dress when she met with her patients here, in her office. She’d need to go back to her cabin to change before the trail ride. She also needed to tell Steve the truth about her relationship with Alec.
Problem was…she really did want to comfort him through his problems. And so far, nothing she’d tried alleviated the growing attraction between the two of them.
Alec
* * *
His first trail ride that afternoon proved awkward. Isobel chose to ride up ahead with Boone, who engaged her in an animated discussion. Each time Izzy laughed, Alec felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. She hadn’t laughed around him—if anything, she’d been cool, wary, when she said hello in the stable earlier.
Alec stuck close to Martin, who was on probation after the incident in the barn. The sullen man kept to himself, and Alec refused to say much near him, though Steve tried to draw him into conversation. Typically, Alec enjoyed palling around with the guys. But Martin… The way he eyed Isobel made Alec uncomfortable, which was why, as soon as the ride was over, Alec drew Steve aside. Alec watched Martin leave the stable, Martin’s gaze fixed on Izzy’s back.
“That’s what’s bothering me,” Alec said. He tipped his head toward Martin, who’d closed the gap between Izzy and him, his face a hungry mask.
“Well, shit,” Steve muttered. He tracked the younger man, his scowl growing. “Iz told me when I asked her that Martin makes her uncomfortable.” He rubbed his palm over the stubble on his chin. “One more misdeed and he’s outta here. I’ll keep a really close eye on Martin. I do anyway,” Steve added.
